Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Although most sports fans associate the term "Orange Bowl" with the annual showdown between elite college-football teams played on (or around) New Year's Day, several other Orange Bowl-related events are held in sports such as lacrosse, tennis, swimming, sailing, and track and field. Among the competitions is the MetroPCS Orange Bowl Basketball Classic, played in Sunrise, Florida at the BB&T Center. This facility, situated in Broward County, just north of Miami-Dade County, is known mainly for being the home of the NHL's Florida Panthers.

This year's Orange Bowl Basketball Classic, played last weekend, featured a college hoops doubleheader. Florida State took on UMass and Florida faced Fresno State. As shown in the following screenshots from the first game (source video), the BB&T Center has a colorful basketball court.

I'm not sure what the design just outside the three-point arc represents. The most likely contenders would seem to be Florida's ubiquitous palm trees or doves proclaiming "Peace on Earth" for Christmas. Note also that Florida State wore special turquoise uniforms for Native American Heritage Month

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Temple University eschewed its on-campus Liacouras Center home yesterday to host Texas at Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center, home of the 76ers. The regular Wells Fargo Center court is completely outlined in blue, with a 76ers logo at center-court. For the Temple game, however, some floor boards were strategically substituted to make it look like a Temple floor, as seen in the following screen captures from ESPN-U/Watch ESPN... (You can click on the photos to enlarge them.)

As far as these kinds of floor-board substitutions go, this one isn't bad. The only problem is that blue isn't a Temple color.

Mizzou Arena has added Tiger stripes along the baselines to reinforce Missouri's team nickname, as seen in the following screenshot from CBS...